[Tee tiong huat]

Ukraine says it has sunk another warship

Ukraine claims it has now disabled a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off coast of Crimea on Wednesday.
Russia’s landing ship Caesar Kunikov was attacked with “MAGURA” V5 drones that punctured “critical holes” on its left side b4 sinking, the Ukrainian military intelligence agency that aligns with Ukrainian claims last wk, disabled about 33% of Russia’s warships, amounting to 24 disabled ships & a submarine. The landing ship Caesar Kunikov would be 25th disabled according to Ukraine’s count. Wednesday’s attack was conducted by agency’s “Group 13” special forces co-operation with Ukraine’s security & defense forces.

Night-time footage provided showed sea drone racing toward Caesar Kunikov, b4 huge plume of smoke rose from vessel. “Ministry of Defense statements military colleagues say nothing, anything about this,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a news briefing.
Wednesday’s attack is the latest in a series of Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s navy, as it tries to land both strategic and symbolic blows against Russian forces that annexed Crimea in 2014.

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nears its 2nd anniversary, the frontlines have for mths remained mostly static since last year. Ukraine has pivoted on Black Sea strikes on Crimea and Russian ships are intended to isolate peninsula & make it more difficult for Russia to sustain its military ops on the Ukrainian mainland.

When asked about the incident in a Brussels press conference on Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said broadly. Ukrainians have been able to inflict heavy losses on Russian Black Sea Fleet,” & is “great achievement, great victory for Ukrainians.” The NATO chief also noted that the fact that Ukraine’s armed forces have pushed away the Russian Black Sea fleet and opened a corridor has allowed them to export grain and other commodities to the world market.

“Few believe this was possible just a few months ago. But now actually, the export of grain from Ukraine takes place even without an agreement with Russia. So this shows that the skills and the competence of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Stoltenberg said, adding that this is a result of the Ukraine’s forces skill set but that also NATO’s support has been important.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/14/europe/uk...index.html

Tactical and technical characteristics. Some technical characteristics of the drone from Ministry of Digital Transformation November 2022

Length: 5.5 m
Gross weight: < 1000 kg
Operating range: up to 400 km
Range of operation: up to 800 km
Range: up to 60 hours
Payload: up to 200 kg
Cruising speed: 41 km/h
Maximum speed: 42 nm/h (78 km/h)
Navigation methods: automatic GNSS, inertial, visual
Video transmission: up to three HD video streams
Cryptographic protection: 256-bit encryption
Cost of Production: about 273,000 USD
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAGURA_V5